


catch up, got no time

by littleboxes



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Abrupt Ending, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Food Poisoning, Gen, Graphic Description, Hurt No Comfort, My First Work in This Fandom, POV Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms), Poisoning, specifically of the effect of antifreeze poisoning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:20:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26971285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleboxes/pseuds/littleboxes
Summary: Sometimes, on bad days, Reggie can still taste the weird, sweet aftertaste of the street dogs. He hates it, because it’s actually kind of nice. It reminds him of cupcake frosting, but he can't think about sweet aftertastes and cupcake frosting without thinking about everything that happened after, and that fucking sucks.
Relationships: Alex & Luke Patterson & Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms), Alex & Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Comments: 54
Kudos: 308





	catch up, got no time

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Family Matters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26828614) by [breakaway71](https://archiveofourown.org/users/breakaway71/pseuds/breakaway71). 



> this was mostly inspired by my own love of angst and a realization that anti freeze used to taste sweet when ingested (less so now, yay) and how that would fit so well with alex’s ‘well that's a new flavor’ from wake up  
> the idea of it being from reggie’s perspective was inspired by a bit from family matters by morganoconner!  
> title's from now or never ;)

Sometimes, on bad days, when Reggie flinches at ambulance sirens and has to stay away from the beach unless he wants to try to slap people’s street food out of their hands and yell at them to go to a hospital, and on bad days when all Reggie can think about is the bike shack that used to be his house and how weird the new Star Wars movies are and how he doesn't know if his parents are even still alive and how he doesn't want to check because what if it turns out they're happier without him-

Sometimes, on bad days, Reggie can still taste the weird, sweet aftertaste of the street dogs. He hates it, because it’s actually kind of nice. It reminds him of cupcake frosting, but he can't think about sweet aftertastes and cupcake frosting without thinking about everything that happened after, and that fucking sucks.

He and Luke had brushed it off at the time, because you know what you're getting into with street dogs (or, you do _usually_ ) and that’s occasional unadvertised, unidentifiable flavors that don’t make a ton of sense, and Alex, despite his complaining, always comes with them and puts way too much mustard and nothing else on his street dog, which is insane, and besides, who cares if the street dogs are a little sweet when they're about to play the _Orpheum_ , but, then. Well. Look how that turned out.

The worst part about dying to poisoned street dogs, Reggie has decided, at least in his case, is how slow it was. 

Or- compared to other ways you can die, it wasn't all that slow in retrospect- an hour, hour and a half, tops. 

(At least, that's how long it took him to black out. He was still in the ambulance, when he blacked out, with Luke and Alex beside him, but Reggie's pretty sure that they at least got taken to a hospital, so maybe it _was_ actually slow, but Reggie hates thinking about it, because thinking about your own death sucks, especially when you aren't entirely sure your parents stopped arguing long enough to pick up the phone- parents get phone calls, Reggie's pretty sure, when their kids are in the hospital.)

But it had felt slow, at the time.

At first it was the weird taste, but hey, it's a street dog. 

Then Luke rambling about their show, how _this is finally it, boys! We’re finally gonna get the recognition we deserve_ , and neither Alex or Reggie being willing to tease him about it because both of them feel the same way. 

Staying on that shitty couch- which Reggie is pretty sure had a family of rats living in it, judging by the squeaks when they’d sat down- for a while, talking and not really doing much other than wasting time. 

Alex complaining about his stomach, and Luke nudging him and laughing about it being a little late for nerves, and Alex sniffing and saying how _sorry you’ll be when I die and you’re stuck in the Orpheum with no drummer_ (and Reggie, despite being alone in the studio, flinches to himself when he remembers that. He wonders if Alex does, too. It’d be funny, if it were anything else.) 

Then Reggie blinking stars out of his eyes and feeling light headed, and Luke rubbing his forehead and wondering _what was in those dogs, dude_ and then there's a bit of a fuzzy spot but Reggie's reasonably sure Alex fell off the couch? and somebody _definitely_ started yelling at them, then Alex being wheeled away, and then another fuzzy bit where Luke, or maybe him, or maybe both of them? vomited, and then they were in the ambulance. At that point, there was a group of people around them, Reggie remembers. Not the kind of audience he was expecting that night, he remembers thinking.

Ambulances are a lot smaller than you’d think. Or- they are when you’re lying in them feeling like your guts are melting and on fire at the same time, and when you’ve got two of your best friends dying right next to you, and two more paramedics loudly moving around trying and failing to keep the three of you alive. Reggie has never been claustrophobic, and it doesn’t really matter now that he’s a ghost, but… he doesn’t like small spaces, anymore. 

Luke had his eyes closed- he'd been the only one of them to get seconds. 

(But then, Luke's an anxious eater. It doesn't come up a lot, because Reggie can count on one hand how many times he's seen Luke anxious, but that night had been one of a kind. In more ways than one, apparently.)

It's Alex that Reggie remembers best from the ambulance. Because Alex didn't have his eyes closed like Luke, his eyes were open, and they were staring at Reggie, and Reggie _hates_ thinking about ambulances now.

Because now all he can think about is the line of blood trailing out of Alex's mouth as he’d tried to grab Reggie's hand, but he couldn't, and Reggie had tried to grab it back, but couldn’t, because everything had been really starting to grey out at that point, but Alex's eyes hadn't, and the last two things Reggie saw before he blacked out were Alex's eyes, reflecting the same terror Reggie is pretty sure were in his own, and Luke's body, convulsing in a horrible mockery of the way he’d bounce around stage.

**Author's Note:**

> commente, perhaps ?


End file.
